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Marina eWof requirements


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Oh no, you can import whatever you want. It is the retailing of such that they need to meet the legal standards. Although it is still shocking how much gets to the shelf that has not meet the standards and is picked up later and then caused a recall of that product.

As for the force that was behind the change, it was Insurance Companies. They have been the main driving force for all the Marina and other area's requirements.

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When I first got back from overseas about 2003 no one bothered policing cable tags or electrical wofs. Things seemed to start changing around 2008 and have steadily become more and more gestapo like, to the point where they are policing made up rules. One marina even starting wandering around testing the pier RCD's once a week until an electrician friend of mine told them it was a stupid idea.

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When I first got back from overseas about 2003 no one bothered policing cable tags or electrical wofs. Things seemed to start changing around 2008 and have steadily become more and more gestapo like, to the point where they are policing made up rules. One marina even starting wandering around testing the pier RCD's once a week until an electrician friend of mine told them it was a stupid idea.

Yet when the High Hazards Unit (part of worksafe) show up to my tunnel site, they specifically ask to see RCD test records. Horses for courses maybe but we are obliged to regulary test  (and record) all RCD's.

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I do know of some incidents and Deaths, mainly from the safety training, but no idea if these were in NZ or not.

The main reason the regs were introduced was to bring us into line with International standards and as Oz has written many of the standards, NZ adopted them. Hence many of the Regs have A/NZ before the number.

A good friend died in the 90s as a result of electrocution when working in a haulout yard in Kuala Lumpur. Cut cord on a sander apparently. There's merit in regular checks to identify faulty gear and remove it from service. Part of my work involves electrical safety on medical equipment. (Just back from checking out a GP clinic tonight.) We find plenty of faults that could have seriously adverse results if ignored, but early intervention means incidents are rare. Yes, we share many of our standards with Oz, but there is good science behind them, which is why we have relatively few electrical accidents in NZ.

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A good friend died in the 90s as a result of electrocution when working in a haulout yard in Kuala Lumpur. Cut cord on a sander apparently.

I know of several accidents in NZ, but all but one were in situations of the accident happening on the main supply side, rather than after the switch board where everything was protected by RCD's. The one that wasn't, was the Father of a Girl I went to school with, and while I was still at school. He was working in a Grain store and dragging a long heavy 3phase extension lead across the floor. He was holding a Sack hook in one hand and decided to give the lead a good yank and the hook went clean through the insulation and into the live wires and killed him. A fluke and a freak accident, because if anyone tried to do this on purpose, you would struggle to tip of those hooks through the tough insulation. If there was such a thing as an RCD in those days, I can only suppose he would have been protected.

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many years ago I was plugging in a 3 phase welder that had just come back from an electrical check. This was in the days of metal body plugs with an earth wire connected to the metal body, unfortunately the neutral wire was connected to the plug and not the earth!!!! To say my hair stood on end was an understatement, managements response was, well your not dead, stop mucking around! AH well back to work, I was very shaky for weeks after.

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That sucks. I'm a fan of regular checks and a huge fan of RCDs. Got a belt from a dodgy builders extension lead once and the rcd tripped quickly enough that there was no damage.

 

Oh and once I tested a brand new tool with no earth continuity. Maybe testing before putting into service is a good idea. China isn't known for its amazing QA processes....

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An excellent article in DEMM (Engineering industry) magazine by Barry Robinson puts very eloquently what I have been saying all along:

Don't put up with BS in H&S
Tuesday, 03 October 2017

Are you being suckered by the H&S gravy train? You can save money immediately by reading the following. 

Test and tagging of electrical appliances and leads is NOT a legal requirement in NZ industrial plants. 

If you Google it you’ll find any amount of references convincing you that it is a legal requirement, but follow those links and you will always come to the test and tag industry many of whom are cultivating this fallacy and who ultimately benefit financially from your confusion. 

“In the view of the MESNZ this is but one example of the unhelpful ‘smoke and mirrors’ rubbish that gets seized upon and promoted by health and safety advisors and HR practitioners, particularly within larger organisations,” said Barry Robinson, Chairman of the Maintenance Engineering Society of NZ. 

“What is happening is these misleading H&S processes become de-facto norms and get mimicked by the media and smaller organisations who think that because the big plants are doing it, then it must be the specified standard that needs to be adopted in all industrial operations large or small.” 

Robinson, who has spent over 30 years safely and healthily running NZ’s largest hot forging and heat treatment plant, makes no apologies for his confrontational approach. 

Other examples are: compulsory wearing of safety glasses, hard hats and hi-viz vests in industrial plants; proliferation of orange cones; stress-inducing beepers on machinery; and banning of ladders.  These things waste time, money, and productivity. Worse, in many cases they can actually expose us to greater risk. 

“A common example of increased risk is the wearing of safety glasses: safety glasses detract from our natural vision and senses in several ways - fogging, limiting or obscuring of peripheral vision and immediate upper and lower frontal vision, irritation and pressure. By wearing safety glasses, we are imposing additional risks on the wearer – so we had better have a really excellent reason for forcing this increased risk on ALL our staff in our industrial plants. 

“It is infinitely better to simply wear safety glasses where there is an actual risk to the eyes. When worn under earmuffs the glasses prevent the earmuffs from doing their job, thereby exposing us to real hearing damage over time, whilst looking like we are ‘being safe’. You get the idea?’ said Robinson.
He added “everything here has happened to me.” 

“Don’t get us wrong”, he said, “at MESNZ, we are all for keeping people in plants safe and healthy – but we achieve far better results by using simple logic and keeping it real.” 

So, in the test and tag example, portable appliance testing (PAT) can be done in-house, and it does not have to be carried out by a registered electrician.  PAT testers do need to be competent and trained, there needs to be a good standard of record keeping, and if faults are identified during testing or when undertaking pre-use checks, any unsafe appliances need to be taken out of service immediately.  This is the standard, simple, basic stuff. 

It is a little bit like a pilot checking the aircraft before flight – just because the plane was checked yesterday doesn’t mean it is safe to fly today. An extension lead unknowingly damaged this morning (but still with a current Tag on it) could kill you this afternoon if the user does not give it a five-second check for obvious damage before use. 

A company that just gets its gear tested and tagged every six months looks like it is doing a great job of H&S, but unless it also has RCD’s and does pre-use checks, the users are lulled into a false sense of security. It is just lip service with no staff engagement in real health and safety. 

Don’t put up with BS in H&S!

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While true smithy, you won't have a chance in arguing the point. If a firm require the safety gear to be worn/used, then you have to do so or risk being removed from the site. Or in our instance, being kicked out of the Marina.

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His whole argument get's nulled by the fact that law is "all practicable steps" if an accident were to occur where you didn't follow a practice that others in your industry do then you'd get nailed, It's also assuming that risks can be accurately identified and located prior to an event so that staff can take precautions only when around these areas or processes.

 

It has been shown time and time again that when money and safety meet in a company money always wins and outside regulation is needed to keep workers safe, Self-regulation has always been a joke. His comparisons to pilots checking a plane whilst fitting is rather ironic given in the aviation space an issue with a process or part can and has grounded fleets

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I whole heartedly agree with Smithy's post. Blanket use of safety / PPE doesn't increase safety and can introduce secondary risks. Generally it is used as an effective way for management to manage safety, with a focus on compliance and arse covering, not on directly addressing each individuals specific safety needs.

 

We often get the test and tag guys checking the leads on my computer screen in the office. our main safety stresses in the office environment are stress and workload, and workstation ergonomics, which aren't dealt with, especially the stress and workload bit.

 

It is beyond me how I can damage a computer monitor lead in a static indoor desk environment...

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His whole argument get's nulled by the fact that law is "all practicable steps" if an accident were to occur where you didn't follow a practice that others in your industry do then you'd get nailed, It's also assuming that risks can be accurately identified and located prior to an event so that staff can take precautions only when around these areas or processes.

 

It has been shown time and time again that when money and safety meet in a company money always wins and outside regulation is needed to keep workers safe, Self-regulation has always been a joke. His comparisons to pilots checking a plane whilst fitting is rather ironic given in the aviation space an issue with a process or part can and has grounded fleets

It's that kind of prediction, backed up by no factual evidence that carries on the H&S myth. Safety glasses mandatory on a building site is bollocks. As are Hard hats when there is nothing to fall on your head. If there is nothing overhead, why wear them? Hi vis vests where there are no trucks/forklifts/cranes operating? Ditto. It's just slavishly following H&S "fashion" through the fear of being "Nailed" as Beccara puts it. Give us some examples!! I agree regarding the money issue. We have the same problem offshore in the oil industry where time really equals a LOT of money, but often the most pin-pricking companies, who insist on gloves, long sleeves in 40 degrees, safety glasses and hard hats, are the worst offenders when it comes to real safety issues like dodgy lifting practices....

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It's that kind of prediction, backed up by no factual evidence that carries on the H&S myth. Safety glasses mandatory on a building site is bollocks. As are Hard hats when there is nothing to fall on your head. If there is nothing overhead, why wear them? Hi vis vests where there are no trucks/forklifts/cranes operating? Ditto. It's just slavishly following H&S "fashion" through the fear of being "Nailed" as Beccara puts it. Give us some examples!! I agree regarding the money issue. We have the same problem offshore in the oil industry where time really equals a LOT of money, but often the most pin-pricking companies, who insist on gloves, long sleeves in 40 degrees, safety glasses and hard hats, are the worst offenders when it comes to real safety issues like dodgy lifting practices....

 

The ACC claims rate for workplace accidents has fallen from 158/1000 FTE to 107/1000 FTE from 2002 to 2016.  I'm not going to raise specific scenarios as for everyone I can dream up you can dream up a counter. I honestly dont know if all H&S changes over the past 20 years have been effective but the overall trend is showing us work places are safer now and fewer people are injuring themselves

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For the last few years before retiring I was driving trucks carting sand metal and the like onto jobs like the waikato expressway.

 

The site rule was if out of vehicle one must where a hard hat. 

 

However each morning there was a site meeting about stuff, We would park our truck and other vehicles on the side of road and carpark.

 

One morning the H/R women gave all us drivers a rarkup for not wearing our hardhats to the meeting. Well one of the drivers was a very attractive young women who proceeded to inform her that "she was not there for her to get her rocks off, by fantasizing that the drivers where some sort off YMCA look alike group of people, and besides, I had my hair done last night and i'm not getting it messed up for you"

 

No more was ever said regards coming to the site meeting without hard hats.

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When I worked on Jade Stadium in CHCH, we had to wear hard hats while inside finished suites. It was so annoying as you could not see what you were wiring half the time.

The worst example of H&S gone too far that I have heard of, has to be during the fixing up of the inland route to Kaikoura after the Earthquake. NZTA had gated off the road and a person on that Gate had to ensure all going through it were up to "code". A Truck Driver was stopped because he was wearing the wrong coloured High Vis vest. I can't remember which way around it was, but basically he was wearing Yellow when all Truckies had to wear Orange (or the other way around). How stupid is that?

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Was on a major building site in Auckland that required hardhats (fair enough in some areas.) Had a girl sitting in lift in a nearly finished section -  all day operating it for the contractors and yes, had a hard hat on, hi viz and steel caps.

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The ACC claims rate for workplace accidents has fallen from 158/1000 FTE to 107/1000 FTE from 2002 to 2016.  I'm not going to raise specific scenarios as for everyone I can dream up you can dream up a counter. I honestly dont know if all H&S changes over the past 20 years have been effective but the overall trend is showing us work places are safer now and fewer people are injuring themselves

What will be happening is fewer people claiming, under preasure from employers as it puts their rate up. I don't believe for one minute that all this H&S bollocks has improved workplace accidents at all.

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